It's a place to come on Friday's and think back over your week and just post about 5 favorite things from your week. It can be anything that tickled your fancy over the week. Favorite quotes, posts, happenings, scriptures, recipes, pictures, great internet finds, etc., etc. Go ahead and grab the button and make your own post. Be as detailed as you like, the more detail the more fun for those of us visiting. Susanne, the hostess, just asks that it be kept family friendly. Click here to play along with us.

1. I love African Violets, and my kitchen is filled with them. They're all in bloom at the moment and as much as I need to split this one into at least 3 additional pots, I couldn't stand the thought of killing the blooms. Transplanting can wait.


2. My obsession with The Phantom of the Opera was reborn this week. It may be driving everyone else around me bonkers, but I'm having a great time watching the movie several times a day.




3. Earlier in the week I mentioned that one of my cats, Camry, was in heat. I scheduled an appointment for her to be spayed on June 22. Wouldn't you know it that just when I get everything set with the vet's office, she goes back to normal! It doesn't really matter; she still needs to be spayed and besides, the next couple of weeks should be much more pleasant with her not in heat and chirping all over the house!

4. Because I wake up before the possums go to bed, I managed to see President Obama's speech in the Amazing Egyptian Dude's homeland in real time. I have to say that it was fantastic to hear the president of my country acknowledge my value to it as an educated Muslim woman who wears a scarf. Yep -- the times, they are a changin'!

5. A dear friend sent me the following in an email; it was the highlight of my entire week:




This little boy wanted to see if the President's hair felt like his. For some reason, it made me burst into tears. Perhaps I cried at the beautiful demonstration of a child's curiosity when he hasn't been "shushed." Maybe it was the thought that this young boy could see part of himself in the President of the United States for the very first time. More than likely, I cried at the humble way President Obama bent down to the boy's level and allowed him to feel his hair.

Patience is a quality that I have learned through the years. "Patience is a virtue," my mother used to tell me and my sisters, and it used to make me crazy as a kid. As an adult, however, I understand the wisdom in her frequent recitation of the old adage. Now I know that patience is definitely a virtue, but anticipation is a heck of a lot more fun! So what am I anticipating? Let me count the ways. . .

1. The Spring 2009 semester begins in about 10 days. I just checked the roster for each class and know that one class has 33 students and the other has 6. The anticipation and excitement that typically go hand in hand at the commencement of a new semester are now overshadowed by the anticipation and anguish over the staying power of the class with only 6 students enrolled.
2. I've been crazy about The Phantom of the Opera for ages but never had the opportunity to see it on stage. That will finally change on February 18th! Basma, who is also hooked on the show, will be turning 15 on February 17th and when I discovered that Phantom was playing in Los Angeles, I decided to make both of us happy on her birthday by getting us a pair of tickets to see Phantom! Talk about old adages -- how about "killing two birds with one stone"?! Of course I couldn't keep this a secret from her; what could be more fun than torturing the niece with the anticipation of a night on the town at the theater?
3. Inauguration Day is just two days away! The level of excitement and anticipation at my house has reached fever pitch. Thank goodness the ceremony takes place early in the morning because if it were in the afternoon, I'd have to cancel my appointment with the neurologist. Sorry Dr. S, but President Obama trumps you this time!
   

With so much to look forward to in the next few weeks, I think I need to remember that old saying about patience -- even if it will make me as crazy now as it did when I was a kid.

One of the tools of intimidation used against those who were sitting on the fence during the election was the charge that President Elect Obama is really a Muslim in Christian clothing. The Muslims of the world knew better, but the Neo-Con pundits and their audiences refused to listen. This morning's news, however, proves us right.

Al-Qaeda Issue Obama Threat

From the tape that Zawahiri released to the public: "It appears that you don’t know anything about the Muslim Ummah (community) and its history, and the fate of the traitors who co-operated with the invaders against it, and don’t know anything about the history of Afghanistan and its free and defiant Muslim people."

I told you so!

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Twenty years ago, Ali and I joined Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and got to see, from the bottom rung of the ladder, the political machinery that runs our country when we participated in the selection of delegates to represent the Democratic party in the presidential election. It was an exciting time for both of us, albeit for very different reasons. For Ali, the 1988 election marked his entry into citizenship and the empowerment that the right to vote for the first time gives us all. For me, though, the election called to mind the more turbulent times of my childhood when young people across the country stood up to the political machinery and demanded that they, too, be counted.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Much like the election of 1960 and the Democratic Convention of 1968 must have done for those who were old enough to participate (I was not), the 1988 election cycle offered me hope for greater things. It also provided me with a greater understanding of how utterly powerful the wall of ignorance in America had remained beyond the Civil Rights Movement. I learned that although the times had changed considerably, they hadn't metamorphosed quite enough to allow a black man to realistically aspire to the highest political office in the land. But the most important lesson of 1988 for me was that hope would really die only if we allowed it to happen.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

For twenty years, I've hung onto the hope that America would change enough to build a true coalition that realistically represents what this country is all about. There have been times when I wondered if we would ever cross the bridge spanning the gap between ignorance and inclusion, but I have always held onto the hope that someday we would and that someday would happen during my lifetime. Yesterday, my hope was realized.

We've still got a way to go before we can say that we have crossed the bridge of ignorance and reached the promised land of inclusion, but at least we are on it and moving steadily forward! Bobby Kennedy said it best:

"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason, and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American society. Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny."

So to those who are unhappy with the results of the 2008 election, I reiterate

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road
Is rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.